Account Specific Business Marketing: Training for Survival – Your customers expect you to customize your programs to their business strategy. Don't forget the training.Download

Assessing Your Sales Resources – A Comparative Guide – How many people do you need and how should you allocate them to be most effective? DHC recently researched 24 CPG sales organizations to better understand this question.Download

Building Customer Equity with Best-Class Customer Service – The DHC study provides CPG companies with an in-depth view of current practices in customer service organization structure, metrics and order management processes.Download

Climbing the Stairway to Service – World-class customer service is complex, but not complicated and can only be achieved through the commitment of the entire enterprise.Download

Customer Management Teams – DHC explores the application of the team concept to the management of key accounts in the consumer products industry. The benefits and drawbacks of account management teams are explained. Additionally, DHC reviews the real challenge of team selling, the need to balance the potential effectiveness of teams with their inherent inefficiency.Download

Great Selling Organization Survey – Every company in the business of selling knows that having a great sales organization is the only way to be really successful. DHC undertook research to uncover the characteristics of a great sales organization.Download

How Market Assessment Drives Successful Acquisitions – With acquisitions not lacking for in-depth assessments, why is actual acquisition success such a mixed bag?Download

How the Marketplace is Redefining the Sales and Marketing Relationship – The marketplace has changed. Do your go-to-market resources still fit the new reality?Download

Manufacturer Price Gaps on Notice with Supreme Court Decision – DHC explores the implications for manufacturers who sell into multiple countries and maintain independent price cards given the United States Supreme Court decision of March 2013.Download

Marketing for the 21st Century – To effectively influence place as a key element of marketing, the sales function must be reintegrated into the marketing effort in-store.Download

New Challenges In Building CPG Sales Effectiveness – Delivering demand-side business solutions requires a Sales function authorized to make decisions and commit resources.Download

Teams, Friend or Foe – DHC takes a broad look at how to implement teams in an organization. The right reasons to install teams, types of approaches, team culture and common practices are discussed.Download

Trying to "Manage Relationship"? Get a MAP – The key to managing is to know where you are going and how you are going to get there.Download

Research, Analytics & Insights Articles

The Impact of Continued Evolution on the Front-End Checkstand Impulse Sales – Retailers understand that the Front-End Checkstand is a critical location in the store. Almost every shopper passes through and it is the last opportunity the retailer has to make the shopping experience a pleasant one.Download

Building A Category Management Capability – Ways that manufacturers can build their category management capabilities.Download

Building Mega Brands in the New Retail Reality – In today’s retail environment, retailers are playing an increasingly important role in interacting directly with the consumer. Manufacturers need to work within this new paradigm to build their brands.Download

Category Management for Healthy Profits – This DHC study examines the Ice Cream category and lays out a prescription for improved profitability.Download

Category Management: Taking a Comprehensive Approach – Category Management is a process – not a "program." That was true when it was introduced in the 90's and it is still true today. Best-in-Class organizations will address it that way.Download

The Central Role of Mutuality in Account Specific Marketing - With today's consumer products manufacturers focusing on the retail outlet as the primary marketing vehicle, we are seeing history come full circle. In the early days of U.S. retailing, the store was not only the marketing vehicle – it was the brand itself. Then manufacturers began to build brands that were linked to products, regardless of where they were sold. Now manufacturers must try to share that stage with the retailer once again.Download

Consumer Solutions at Retail – Beyond Category Management – Retailers must move past the management of individual categories and start managing the total retail experience if they are to succeed in the age of format differentiation. How will manufacturers be part of that process and avoid becoming a passive player in the store?Download

Drowning in Data – Somewhere Category Management took a hard turn toward the world of syndicated and POS data. Now the creative marketing and merchandising art is virtually lost in the science of the template.Download

Efficient Promotion: How Can We Tell? – Trade spending continues to increase in overall spending and as a % of the marketing mix. How can a manufacturer ensure that their trade funds are being used efficiently?Download

Front-End Focus: Moving Beyond Category Management – Focus on the consumer has the potential for expanding the scope and impact of collaborative business initiatives.Download

GHQ In-Store Leadership – Leaders in the consumer products industry are increasingly aware that the most critical interface in brand marketing is where the consumer meets the product in the store. A study by Dechert-Hampe and Grocery Headquarters explores the opportunity for in-store marketing and the role it can play in market leadership.Download

Is Category Management Still Viable? You Bet! – Category Management remains a viable and important tool in the manufacturer / retailer relationship. Are you doing Category Management right?Download

Top Talent: A Top Priority – The Boomers are ready to retire. Are you ready for them to go? Download

Making and Taking Time for Category Management –Sales managers need training as well as time to become effective business managers and to effectively execute category management programs with the trade.Download

Marketing Against Retailer Brands – For almost three decades now, the producers and marketers of national brands have been watching an ever rising tide of private label products sweep onto the scene. Nearly aborted in the U.S. in its infancy by an ill conceived and ill fated “low price and lower quality” strategy during the recession years of the seventies, private label has matured into a broad range of retailer owned brands with positioning ranging from extreme value to super premium. So what is a national brand marketer to do?Download

New Geo-Demographic Solutions for Effective Micro-Marketing – There are powerful new systems available that enable new ways to link consumer profiles and the competitive environment with store performance, store location and in-store product placement.Download

What to Ask Your Corporate Lawyer About Robinson-Patman – An effective trade funds management strategy must be built on a solid legal foundation.Download

Why Isn't Category Management Living Up to Expectations? – A review of some of the factors that are contributing to category management not living up to its high expectations.Download

Productivity & Performance Improvement Articles

Building the Right Performance Support System for Your Category Management Efforts – An effective category management program includes an integrated “Performance Support System” (on-line support, reference materials and training programs).Download

Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment – A business planning and execution process that provides a refreshing new perspective on forecasting.Download

CRM - It's More Than Just Software – Capitalizing on any concept requires a strategy for implementation in the marketplace AND the organization.Download

Creating A Stellar Sales Force – Superior people and interpersonal skills are the key to success and winning with the customer. Sales training and development must focus on the breadth and depth of these skills.Download

Customized Software Solutions for Enhanced Business Effectiveness – A key to doing more with less is the effective use of technology. Companies are using their human resources to develop custom software applications by leveraging the power of technology they already own to provide time-saving automation.Download

Keeping Score With the Customer – Insuring measures and rewards support not only the critical success factors of the business, but the expectations of customers and consumers as well.Download

Key Performance Indicators: Putting the Customer First – Measuring the right things drives the behavior changes necessary to impact the customer relationship.Download

Managing Your Greatest Asset – Most companies have made significant investments in knowledge and information but are not fully leveraging them to maximize revenues and profits.Download

Marketing in the Process Re-Engineering Organization – Trace the evolution of Marketing from a functionally oriented set of tasks to the process of building the franchise with both consumers and customers.Download

One Face to the Customer – Customer Service Reps can significantly improve customer satisfaction by taking full ownership of a customer’s issues (eliminating transferring of calls to various departments), a “One Face” approach.Download

Developing Critical Thinking Skills in Your Sales Force – Can you really teach someone critical thinking? Absolutely! Dechert-Hampe has developed a program that makes the most effective and efficient use of your sales team's time.Download

DHC, Grocery Headquarters and RetailWire studied the emerging role of In-Store Marketing including a survey of the industry to recognize In-Store Marketing leaders…

IMPULSE SALES:

Evolution of the Front-End

Front-End Checkstands are constantly evolving. How does this innovation impact impulse sales? With continued evolution must come continual evaluation of these front-end merchandising changes.

NEW RESEARCH REPORTS:

Top Talent: A Top Priority

This comprehensive study conducted by the Sales Executive Share Group (SESG), an organization of the top sales executives at major CPG companies, provides insights into recruiting and retaining Millennials for Consumer Packaged Goods Sales.